[Plugin] Extrude Edges by Rails

[TIG]

@unknownuser said:

Next will be Coon'Surface?
(just add the oposite profile as Rail 3

Pilou !
One step at a time...

[Ecuadorian]

Pilou, you want SketchUp to become MoI. Each one has its own.

[pilou]

Now there are distant cousins

If you take the previus 3 curves without connection between them you will obtain these flying fishes
(click image if scrollbar)

[tomot]

Looks like it has a lot of potential, I have not had time to try it yet.
I was wondering if you had included, "Triangulate" or "Quad" face options?

cheers!

[notareal]

[kostas_designer]

A force of SU nature!!
Really cool!
Great job, Tig!

Here is some first trying:

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[TIG]

@unknownuser said:

Humhum
Seems we must have possibility to reverse rails before apply the plug!
[attachment=0:1pr20x36]<!-- ia0 -->falsebug.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1pr20x36]

I am looking how to fix this within the script - to fix it manually for now use scale -1 on the profile about the profile's centre...

[pilou]

Humhum
Seems we must have possibility to reverse rails before apply the plug!

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false_bug.skp

[pilou]

The curious thing is that the Rail2 is a "straight line"
So must be divided , then welded
But result seems no reproductible and gives some nusty result

PS A multi-profils along Rail1 rail2 will be sweet too

[mitcorb]

Pilou:
I had similar results with the construction points on several attempts. Once, with rails made by Freehand tool and once with profile and rails made by Welded segments for profile and rails and once by smoothing out the profile with added arcs and Welding.
Since TIG said the script was mostly stable, I figured that there would be some of this to happen.

[TIG]

@mitcorb said:

Pilou:
I had similar results with the construction points on several attempts. Once, with rails made by Freehand tool and once with profile and rails made by Welded segments for profile and rails and once by smoothing out the profile with added arcs and Welding.
Since TIG said the script was mostly stable, I figured that there would be some of this to happen.

Can you all give as much info about the failures as possible [PM me small skps if appropriate] Ruby Console messages etc - I want to debug this glitch

[mitcorb]

TIG:
Thanks for the Example skp.
I will try to provide you with examples as time permits. And I have been observing the Ruby console.
My last experiment was with Polyline Divider as the profile and rails from Fredo's Bezier collection. I got the mesh ok, but of course, the math complexity reversed and crisscrossed the beginning and ending copies of the profile causing an oblate spheroid bulge(same shape as an American football) and wings like Pilou's harlequin flying fish. However, there was no comment in the console.
Unfortunately the file is saved on my home machine. I will have to send it later.

[jeff hammond]

hey TIG
here's a problem i've run into sometimes in an instance where it seems it should work. i'm only getting partial results in this case.
any ideas?

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railQ.skp

[pilou]

With the Jeff curve
I have black crosses in the v7
and a false surface in the V6

[jeff hammond]

using that same file, here's another weird thing i can't figure out. (a video's probably easiest for me because i don't have to type as much )

(at first, it shows the problem i was previously talking about)
after that, i copy/move the profile and each rail the same amount along the red axis.. then end up with entirely different results.
?

[flash=640,385:lwa8fguo]http://www.youtube.com/v/LN5Q9KjU9m0&hl=en_US&fs=1&[/flash:lwa8fguo]

[jeff hammond]

here's another question/problem i'm seeing..

it seems like the grid should line up according to the corresponding segments of the two rails (the 2rails being at the top&bottom of this picture)
.

like this, there's a kink being created in the surface along the left edge (which is somewhat visible in the inset picture..the surface drops down prior to rising because it appears the grid line is in the wrong place).. i guess i could make the surface bigger than needed and trim away some of the outer edges but that's not really optimal.. if it's fixable, i think it's worth fixing.

thanks a ton for figuring all this stuff out

[TIG]

These problems seem to relate to the way the vertices in the the curves are ordered. They are reordered by the script before making the mesh... BUT obviously not well enough in some cases.

If you explode the three curves in your railQ.skp in turn and then immediately weld them back into new curves they make the mesh perfectly... So my re-order and weld's must vary somewhere...

I'll look at the ordering algorithms etc and release an update asap...

[Daniel S]

Amazing TIG!!!
Thanky you!!!

How about an option to maintain height?
In your script shape curves scale in both the height and width dimensions. It will be great to have an option to remove the association between the height scaling from the width scaling for some models.

As an example: here is what your script make:

And here with Maintain height:

Daniel S

[jeff hammond]

@tig said:

These problems seem to relate to the way the vertices in the the curves are ordered. They are reordered by the script before making the mesh... BUT obviously not well enough in some cases.

didn't even realize vertices were in a particular order .. is the grid example something to do with the order as well or something different?

daniel, that's going into a different territory in that the profile changes as it moves along the rails (the halfcircle doesn't remain the same in terms of shape).. if something like that is possible in SU then i have another request that's similar though different.. i'll hold off on asking for now

[Panga]

Thanks a lot for this new tool, it'll be very usefull !!